To Kill A Mockingbird Innocence Essay

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines innocence as “freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil”. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee defines a “mockingbird” as someone or something that does nothing to bother or harm others. When Scout and Jem Finch get rifles for Christmas, their father Atticus warns them not to shoot at mockingbirds. The children fail to understand at first, but their neighbor Miss Maudie informs them that mockingbirds do not do anything but make music for people to enjoy, that’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird (Lee 119). During the course of the story, the author depicts a few of the characters, such as Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, as mockingbirds, but many suffer due to their innocence.
During part two of To Kill a Mockingbird, the writer introduces a young African American named Tom Robinson, a kindhearted man who occasionally stops at the Ewell’s house to help Mayella Ewell with chores. One day, Mayella kisses him, but her father viciously accuses Tom of rape when in reality, Tom does nothing to harm anyone at all. During the trial when Tom is being asked questions he admits: “[Mayella] [l]ooked like she didn’t have nobody to help her [... ,] I felt right sorry for her [Mayella], she seemed to try more’n the rest of ‘em-.” (Lee 264) Because of his innocence, Tom sees the difficult life that Mayella lives, and he helps her do the harder chores. Unfortunately, due to his innocence, he falls into a trap where he is left vulnerable and unprotected from Bob Ewell’s wrongdoings. The townspeople target at the color of his skin and discriminate against him regardless of the truth beneath the surface. As a result, he is mistakenly accused and sentenced to die for the crime he has never committed. Thus, Bob Ewell deals the ultimate sin of killing Tom Robinson, who is a mockingbird. Overall, because Tom’s innocence leaves him more vulnerable than others, he is